Top 5 SEO WP Themes

Written by: Jason Bayless | April 15, 2015

WordPress makes building websites easy by allowing users to choose from highly customizable themes. These templates make it possible to build unique sites without having to become an expert in coding. Webmasters who choose themes with built-in search engine optimization can build sites that are search engine friendly from the moment they launch. Here are the top five SEO WordPress themes for site-building.

Thesis

Developed by Chris Pearson of Pearsonified, the Thesis theme is structured with SEO in mind. It utilizes header tags in its customizable design. Many people misunderstand the proper way to use header tags, and they tend to make mistakes that actually hurt SEO. For example, each post should only use a single H1 tag, and lower level tags should always be directly related to the content of that top-level tag. This theme takes care of those things automatically through its design structure, and it takes the guesswork out of learning how to properly use header tags. Having a properly structured site is among the most important elements of recommended search engine optimization practices.

Avada

Avada is used by hundreds of thousands of webmasters who love the fact that it allows for almost any design style. This theme allows for high levels of customization, and using it requires no coding knowledge at all. A responsive theme, Avada looks great on any type of screen or platform. Its extra features include a shortcode generator, a mega-menu and a Fusion slider. The company continues to support the theme, providing updates on a regular basis and prides itself on having an excellent support staff. Having high levels of support means that the theme can be used well into the foreseeable future. This prevents webmasters from being forced to change themes because of new programming language updates.

Genesis Framework

Developers love the Genesis Framework theme for several different reasons. The platform offers lots of support, requires less time to develop than many other themes, allows for upgrades as they are released and comes with lots of built-in features that make site-building and SEO optimization easy. It comes with custom widgets that add lots of extra functionality to a site. Because many webmasters choose this theme, there are plenty of tutorials and message boards where answers to questions can easily be found. Genesis offers the power of SEO and the simplicity of a sleek, well-designed theme. Sometimes simpler themes are better for optimization because they allow for good aesthetics combined with fast loading speed.

Schema

Schema is excellent for SEO purposes. It has a quick loading time, a custom options panel, a great design, and includes snippets that are designed to help with search engine optimization. It is highly customizable and can support a variety of plugins. Because this theme is based on a responsive design, sites look professionally designed on any platform, media device or screen. As with all open-source programs, Schema allows for coding edits. This means the possibilities for modification to its design are limitless.

Parallax

Parallax is a child-theme that works within the Genesis Framework. Its design is fully responsive, fast-loading and excellent for SEO. The minimalist design makes it perfect for quick site building that allows for a sleek, professional look. Its responsive design allows for compatibility on any device, and as more users access the web from mobile phones, this is becoming essential for getting the most website traffic. Users love the simplicity of being able to add a child-theme to an already excellent Genesis theme for extreme customization options.

While there are lots of WordPress plugins designed to help make pages more SEO-friendly, using a theme that was designed with this purpose in mind often leads to better results. It is possible to manually take care of search engine optimization without using a custom theme or plugins, but with so many tools available, savvy webmasters take advantage of simplified SEO by using themes the were created with search engines in mind.